Civil society members to decide future plan today

He said that besides himself, civil society activists such as Medha Patkar and Aravind Kejriwal will discuss the future plan of action on the Lokpal bill.

“We will hold a meeting with Annaji tomorrow and chart our course of action. But we will first let Parliament get the first draft before deciding whether to embark on a protest”, said Agnivesh.

While complimenting the improvement of the government’s bill from what was presented earlier in Parliament, Agnivesh said that there was still a lot of room for improvement.

“It is not to our full satisfaction. There are differences on some issues such as bringing the prime minister’s office under the Lokpal ambit, and also the conduct of MPs inside Parliament involving corruption”, he pointed out.

On Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi’s statement that the prime minister should not come under the Lokpal, Agnivesh said that he did not know whether the statement was made keeping in mind that Gandhi was a potential future prime minister.

“The current prime minister is trying to escape scrutiny from investigation, especially at a time when several new scams are emerging such as the coal scam, and the Cauvery Godavari scam.

“Prime Ministers from V P Singh, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and even Manmohan Singh earlier had agreed that the prime minister’s office should fall under the Lokpal’s ambit”.